This past weekend we stopped by Martha Otero Gallery for the opening of Pedro Matos’ first Los Angeles solo exhibition. Building Castles Made of Sand featuring a new series of oil paintings on canvas and Azulejo panels - a traditional Portuguese medium of hand-painted, tin-glazed, ceramic tile work. Photos and more after the jump…

London-based, Portugal-born Pedro Matos, who we had the chance to finally meet at Ivory & Black's booth at Art Basel in Miami this past year, will be having his first solo show in Los Angeles at Martha Otero opening on May 17, 2013. Building Castles Made of Sand featuring a new series of oil paintings on canvas and azulejo panels - a traditional Portuguese medium of hand-painted, tin-glazed, ceramic tile work.

On Saturday, May 26, Thinkspace Gallery will open the big group show, Wild At Heart: Keep Wildlife in the Wild, an exhibition to raise awareness about the precarious predicament of wild creatures around the world, and to benefit efforts to protect them in their natural habitat. Featuring more than 110 artists, the show features works from Aaron Horkey, ARYZ, Dabs Myla, Esao Andrews, Know Hope, Pedro Matos, and many others.

Pedro Matos, whom we last saw showing at White Walls in San Francisco, just opened a new solo show, Heritage, at Ivory and Black in London this past weekend. “Heritage” features a new series of oil paintings on canvas and one site-specific installation, with each painting featuring unique layering consisting of different languages of painting, which combine texture, patterns, realistic figurative painting and text. Our London correspondent, Butterfly, made it to the opening...

Lisbon, Portugal-based Pedro Matos, a young and emerging artist whom we have profiled in the magazine in the past, just opened an exhibition, Ephemera, at San Francisco's Shooting Gallery. The exhibition features Matos' layered, textured oil on canvas works.